In May of 1995, I collected open pollinated seed from a single specimen of Acer rubrum ‘Armstrong’ (unpatented) growing in Boring, Oreg. My goal was to eventually select an improved columnar form of Acer rubrum. I immediately sowed this seed in seedbeds in a nursery in Boring, Oreg. The seed germinated quickly and grew well. I allowed these seedling trees to grow for two seasons and then dug them in January of 1997. I was able to harvest approximately 250 small seedling trees. From these, I saved the largest 162 seedlings and planted them out into a row in the same nursery in May of 1997. The other seedlings were destroyed. I then allowed these seedling trees to grow for three growing seasons and regularly evaluated them, looking for unusual forms for selection. From these 162 trees, I selected the three narrowest growing trees in the fall of 1999 and destroyed the others. One of these three trees was ‘JFS-KW78’. I selected it because it was the narrowest growing and most compact of the trees in the row. I planted ‘JFS-KW78’ and the two sibling trees in a long term evaluation block in the spring of 2000 along with other selected forms of Acer rubrum. Over the next eight years, I evaluated these trees and determined that ‘JFS-KW78’ was the narrowest and most compact of the trees I had selected. I destroyed the two sibling trees as inferior in form.
In August of 2005, August of 2007, and August of 2009, I propagated small test plots by chip budding on Acer rubrum rootstock in a nursery in Canby, Oreg., and a nursery in Boring, Oreg. Each one of these test plots consisted of approximately 20 trees which were grown for evaluation purposes for two years, then destroyed. In 2007 I rooted 38 trees from softwood cuttings in a nursery in Boring, Oreg. These were also planted in a nursery row test plot in Boring, Oreg. in 2009 and evaluated over the next two growing seasons. These trees were dug in January 2012 and transplanted into a stock block in the same nursery for future propagation. In the summer of 2009, I sent shoot tips of my new maple to a micropropagation lab in Gervais, Oreg. All micropropagated plants were sent to the same Boring, Oreg. and Canby nurseries where they have been planted and all still remain in the field.
All of this asexual propagation in Canby and Boring, Oreg. by budding on Acer rubrum rootstock, by softwood cuttings, and by micropropagation has shown that the characteristics of my new tree are firmly fixed in successive generations. Testing, evaluation, and comparison of ‘JFS-KW78’ with seedlings of the species and existing commercial cultivars of Acer rubrum has convinced me that my new tree has superior form and appearance for landscape use.
Classification: In recent years, some authors have reclassified some cultivars of Acer rubrum as the hybrid species Acer×freemanii. I have followed the classification published by Santamour and McArdle of the U.S. National Arboretum which classified the seed parent of my tree, ‘Armstrong’, as Acer rubrum (Santamour and McArdle, Checklist of Cultivated Maples 1. Acer rubrum L., Journal of Arboriculture 8(4), April 1982). As all of the trees I have raised from seed of ‘Armstrong’, including my new tree, most closely resemble true Acer rubrum, I believe this is correct.